For decades social scientists have observed that Americans are becoming more selfish, headstrong, and callous. Instead of lamenting a cultural slide toward narcissism, Transcending Self-Interest: Psychological Explorations of the Quiet Ego provides comprehensive research on both the problems of egocentrism and ways of transcending it.
The editors have assembled a group of contributors who are helping to reshape how the field of psychology defines the self in the 21st Century. Their theories and research suggest two paths to this transcendence:
- balancing the needs of self and others in one's everyday life and
- developing compassion, nondefensive self-awareness, and interdependent self-identity.
At the end of these converging paths lies a quiet ego—an ego less concerned with self-promotion than with the flourishing of both the self and others.
Readers will find in this volume inspiration not only for future work in psychology but also for their own efforts toward personal development.
Contributors
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
—Heidi A. Wayment and Jack J. Bauer
- The Psychology of the Quiet Ego
—Jack J. Bauer and Heidi A. Wayment
I. Putting the Ego Into Perspective
- The Lure of the Noisy Ego: Narcissism as a Social Trap
—W. Keith Campbell and Laura E. Buffardi - A Terror Management Perspective on the Quiet Ego and the Loud Ego: Implications of Ego Volume Control for Personal and Social Well-Being
—Spee Kosloff, Mark J. Landau, Daniel Sullivan, and Jeff Greenberg - In Search of the Optimal Ego: When Self-Enhancement Bias Helps and Hurts Adjustment
—Virginia S. Y. Kwan, Lu Lu Kuang, and Belinda X. Zhao - Taming the Wild Ego: The Challenge of Humility
—Julie Juola Exline - From Egosystem to Ecosystem: Implications for Relationships, Learning, and Well-Being
—Jennifer Crocker
II. The Importance of Awareness in Quieting the Ego
- Beyond Me: Mindful Responses to Social Threat
—Kirk Warren Brown, Richard M. Ryan, J. David Creswell, and Christopher P. Niemiec - Individual Differences in Quiet Ego Functioning: Authenticity, Mindfulness, and Secure Self-Esteem
—Michael H. Kernis and Whitney L. Heppner - Self-Compassion: Moving Beyond the Pitfalls of a Separate Self-Concept
—Kristin D. Neff - The Role of Awareness and Autonomy in Quieting the Ego: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective
—Christopher P. Niemiec, Richard M. Ryan, and Kirk Warren Brown - Motivation, Threshold for Threat, and Quieting the Ego
—Holley S. Hodgins
III. The Importance of Others in Quieting the Ego
- Hierarchy Among Selves: An Implication for Relations With Persons Versus Groups
—Lowell Gaertner, Constantine Sedikides, Michelle Luke, and Jonathan Iuzzini - Allo-Inclusive Identity: Incorporating the Social and Natural Worlds into One's Sense of Self
—Mark R. Leary, Jessica M. Tipsord, and Eleanor B. Tate - Perspectives on the Self in the East and the West: Searching for the Quiet Ego
—Derrick Wirtz and Chi-yue Chiu - The Collective and Compassionate Consequences of Downward Social Comparisons
—Heidi A. Wayment and Erin M. O'Mara - Collective Angst: How Threats to the Future Vitality of the Ingroup Shape Intergroup Emotion
—Michael J. A. Wohl and Nyla R. Branscombe - Beyond the Individualistic Self: A Framework for Prosocial Motives and Judgments
—M. Audrey Korsgaard and Bruce M. Meglino
IV. Developmental Perspectives on Quieting the Ego
- How the Ego Quiets as It Grows: Ego Development, Growth Stories, and Eudaimonic Personality Development
—Jack J. Bauer - Homonegativity and the Lesbian Self: Portraits of the Ego as Either Transcender or Occluder of Negative Social Stereotypes
—Ed de St. Aubin and Kim Skerven - Self-Development Through Selflessness: The Paradoxical Process of Growing Wiser
—Monika Ardelt - Generativity, the Redemptive Self, and the Problem of a Noisy Ego in American Life
—Dan P. McAdams
Author Index
Subject Index
About the Editors
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